Victor Donovan

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Portrayed by

Japanese voice actor

English voice actor

Live action actor

Victor Donovan is the former leader of the DOATEC anti-Douglas faction and the former head of the Development Department, a state of the art military fortress where Project Alpha and Project Omega were developed. He is the main antagonist of the series.

His first physical appearance was in Dead or Alive Dimensions in order to explain his motives and intents throughout the series.

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In the first Dead or Alive, Donovan employed the Russian assassin Bayman to kill DOATEC's chairman, Fame Douglas. This attempt is thought to have been successful, as Douglas died shortly after the event. The nature of Donovan's rebellion is thought to be controversy over experiments to be carried out to create an ultimate Dead or Alive fighter. This means that Donovan is responsible for Projects Epsilon, Alpha, and Omega. At some point after Raidou's demise at Kasumi's hands in the first tournament, Donovan retrieved Raidou's corpse and worked for two years in order to bring him back to life.

After the first tournament, Donovan had his subordinates capture Kasumi, and sent her body to DOATEC Germany, as he deemed her useful for his ambition of creating an ultimate fighter — a cloning project. At some point after his first clone is created, the leader of the Mugen Tenshin clan's Hajinmon sect, Genra, goes to Donovan for an alliance, intending to rule both the Mugen Tenshin and DOATEC respectively. Their first step is sending Kasumi α to kidnap a comatose Hayate, to use him for Donovan's Epsilon project.

Despite losing both Kasumi and Hayate thanks to Hayabusa, Donovan still has Kasumi's samples and proceeds with his cloning plans. He sends Alpha to guard Genra.

In Dead or Alive 3 Donovan captures Helena, Fame Douglas' daughter, since she stands to inherit her father's position as chairman of DOATEC. He challenges Helena to win the Dead or Alive 3 tournament in order to gain her freedom and learn the truth behind the company. He also employs the assassin Christie to keep an eye on her.

Meanwhile, Bayman seeks revenge after Donovan plotted his assassination to tie up any loose ends.

In Helena's ending of Dead or Alive 4, Ryu Hayabusa is shown destroying an airship with a man who was believed to be Donovan. For a time, there was some speculation that Donovan also appeared on the front cover of the Dead or Alive 4 video game case, but this theory was debunked when players realized it was Zack wearing the same costume from Helena's ending.
After the end credits of Dead or Alive: Dimensions, Donovan is seen putting on Genra's mask, revealing that Donovan did in fact survive the final battle at the Tritower complex.

After the destruction of DOATEC, Donovan establishes an organization called MIST to continue with the Alpha Project. At some point, he successfully revives Raidou as a cyborg. During Dead or Alive 5, he is already ready to start Phase 4 of his Alpha plan: the creation of soldiers with the fighting capabilities of the four ninja (Kasumi, Hayate, Ayane and Hayabusa) and distributing them to countries with powerful militaries around the world. Donovan has already created several Alpha clones, each with their own unique number. When the ninja attack the MIST laboratory hidden within the oil rig, Donovan has his son, Rig, capture Hayate and reactivate Project Epsilon. But that apparently fails when Kasumi rescues Hayate and Lisa releases him. The ninja then destroy the lab along with all of the Alpha clones that were inside.

However, it seems that Donovan is not worried about the loss of the lab, as Rig already has the samples they needed. They are ready to proceed with Phase 4.

Donovan wears a white pinstripe suit and has blonde hair that seems to be slicked completely back. His facial features are entirely unknown as he is seen wearing a mask in all of his appearances and that his face has yet to be revealed to the player.

Because Donovan does not appear in the story that often, not much is known about his personality. There are two things about him that can be said for certain: he is ruthless and manipulative, stopping at nothing to get what he wants, and he is obsessed with creating the "ultimate fighter." He commits immoral human experiments in order to create this "ultimate fighter." He apparently has little respect for idealism, even going as far as to list it as an "endangered species" within DOATEC.

He is also shown to be somewhat lustful towards his creations, in particular Kasumi α/Alpha-152, which can be inferred by his reaching up and reacting with ecstasy over the occupant of a culture tank being "back" while laughing erratically, causing NiCO (who had seen this via one of the security monitors) to react with disgust.

Of Latin origin, his first name Victor means "one who conquers," thus describing his evil, ambitious nature. His surname Donovan is both of English and Gaelic for "dark chieftain." This surname describes him as the "dark master" behind the entire events that occurred before the Dead or Alive Tournament and assassination of Fame Douglas.

Donovan had hired Bayman to assassinate Fame Douglas for him. After returning successfully from his mission, Donovan betrays him by sending other assassins to kill him. Donovan did this because he did not want to leave any proof that he had any part in Fame Douglas' death. As a result, Bayman hates Donovan and would love nothing more than to kill him.

The nature of Donovan's relationship with Christie is not entirely known. It can be assumed that he hired her because of her skill as an assassin. He also seems to trust her a great deal, as she often acts as his right hand. At some point, Christie had been planning to betray him. It is unknown if Donovan knew about this or not.

It is unknown what relationship Lisa shares with Donovan, but Lisa reveals animosity during the events of Dead or Alive 4 about Hayate's capture and Project Epsilon when Helena confronted her in the burning of the tri-towers. She has worked for Donovan in the past, but was possibly betrayed by him somehow. Nevertheless, she continued working for him until the end of Dead or Alive 5 as part of MIST.

Because Helena is the legitimate heir to DOATEC, Donovan sees her as a threat to his power. He sends Christie to pose as a servant and befriend Helena in order to keep an eye on her. Eventually, he decides to have Christie kill her. Though she tries to kill Helena in both the third and fourth tournaments, Christie failed due to Bayman's interference.

Kasumi α/Alpha-152 is the first clone of Kasumi and Donovan's "ultimate fighter." Because she was created by Donovan, she is completely loyal to him. When she found out that Christie intended to betray him, she treated her with suspicion and was determined to protect him.

Rig is Donovan's possible son, although not much is shown about their
relationship. "Donovan Jr." is revealed to be his programmed identity
when brainwashed, making it ambiguous as to whether he is actually
related to Donovan. As Victor Donovan Jr., he is shown to be loyal to
Donovan's schemes and willing to carry out his dirty work, but with this
being due to mind control it seems likely that Donovan merely views Rig
as yet another pawn to exploit in order to achieve his goals.

After Raidou's demise at Kasumi's hands in the first tournament, Donovan recovered Raidou's body and two years later, succeeds in bringing him back to life with the help of NiCO. Raidou is transformed into a powerful undead ninja cyborg and works as a special agent for Donovan in return.

Donovan was personally responsible for recruiting NiCO into MIST's latest experiment, largely due to her massive intellect. However, NiCO has no real loyalty to him or MIST, merely using them as a stepping stone to further her own agenda. NiCO on her part is also implied to despise Donovan, as she expresses disgust upon seeing him lust after an individual in a tank.

He was portrayed by Eric Roberts in the 2006 movie adaption. In the film, Donovan uses a machine to acquire the fighting skills of the best fighters in the tournament (becoming similar to Raidou in the video games, since he uses the skills of several fighters). Nevertheless, he ends up killed in the explosion of DOA Island in the 2006 movie after being acupunctured in the back of his neck by Kasumi.